


mother, mother

by call_me_steve



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Archery, Gen, Good Parent Talia al Ghul, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, SO, damian has some thinking to do, it depends on how you see the comics, only damian is really in the fic, ra's is only referenced and so is dick and bruce, talia grew up abused by ra's, talia is only referenced
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/call_me_steve/pseuds/call_me_steve
Summary: Talia had always been a good mother to Damian.It was only Ra's who hurt them. It was only Ra's that built them up so he could tear them down, only Ra's whoabusedthem.The world didn't really see it that way.(Or, as Damian attempts archery, he does some thinking.)
Relationships: Talia al Ghul & Damian Wayne
Comments: 9
Kudos: 193





	mother, mother

Damian knocks another arrow and pulls in a deep breath. The wood is soft against his hands, a solid presence that keeps him grounded. His eyes don’t waver from the target before him, even as he adjusts his stance. He knows he’s too tense, he knows his shoulders are awkward and his stance is a hair off, he knows because he hasn’t done archery for years- not since he was by his mother’s side and she guided his teensy limbs with careful and precise hands. 

He wishes she were here, now. He wishes she were here again and guiding these shoulders that he hasn’t quite grown into yet. At least then he’d be doing this right. At least then he wouldn’t miss the target again and again and _again._

The ground before him is littered with his mistakes. He hates himself for every arrow that misses the target. He hates himself for missing his mother, too. Especially when she let him go with his father, let him stay there even when everyone thought Father was _dead,_ even when she put a bounty on his head and the clone she’d created to track him down went rouge and slid a blade through his heart-

She said it was for his own good. It probably was. 

Had he stayed by Ra’s’ side, he would’ve been created into a weapon. His mother didn’t want that for him, she hadn’t wanted him to turn out like she had. Though, she hadn’t been able to protect him during those first ten years of his life. She hadn’t been able to save him from Ra’s’ lessons or his tricks of manipulation. She hadn’t been able to save herself either. Not from him. Not from the League. 

As a result, Damian killed at the ripe old age of four years old. He had a sword in his hand since the moment he could walk. He knew the cold sting of a slap before he knew the warmth of a grandfather’s love. 

His mother had done her best. Damian full heartedly believes she had. 

Even if his family says that Talia was _abusive._ Even if his family believes this like law, because Todd knows bruises before love too, because Drake knows the textbook signs of abuse and neglect having studied it throughout the night and having taught himself these things because this is how he shows love even if it’s odd, because Dick can’t wrap his head around the fact that Talia’s way of parenting didn’t count as abuse if she was doing what she could to minimize the damage and keep Damian safe, because _Father_ couldn’t find it in himself to love Talia anymore for keeping Damian hidden away even though that wasn’t her _choice_. 

Grandfather was a terrible man. This is Damian’s one true law. He was the true being of abuse, not Talia. Not Mother.

Had Grandfather been by his side, he’d have called Damian a _fool,_ called him _weak_ and _idiotic_ for being unable to slice that red dot in the center of the target. He’d have had a servant backhand Damian because Damian wasn’t important enough for Ra’s to hit him himself, and then he’d have the servant killed because the servant wasn’t important enough to _touch_ Damian. Then he’d have Damian knock arrow after arrow until the area on his arm reddened and he ached all over and then would have Damian keep _going_ until he passed out or something like that. 

So, when Damian said he wanted _Mother,_ he wasn’t saying he wanted to return to the League. No, he wanted to take Mother away from that wretched place, assure that Ra’s couldn’t touch her, assure that that life would be behind them now if they so choose to, assure that they could start anew without Ra’s interfering with them and their future any longer. 

But, Father would never allow Talia to take refuge in the manor. Mother and her pride would never allow her to _ask_ Father to allow her to take refuge with Damian. 

Though, Todd _had_ once talked about _puppy dog eyes,_ about how they were born for manipulation and swaying those who couldn’t possibly be swayed with bribery. Perhaps if he just used them, perhaps if he taught himself in secret and then tracked Mother down, he could manage to get Mother to come home with him, he could manage to get Father to allow her to stay long enough for them to fall back in love, or for her to find her own place. 

Then she’d be able to do archery with him. 

Then she’d be able to tell him how _well_ he’s doing, how _proud_ she is of him. 

He lets the arrow go, grinding his teeth, letting loose a half-hearted cry. The arrow pierces the red dot and near tears the canvas in two, tip embedding itself in the wooden supports behind it. Damian reaches into the quiver hooked to his belt, pulls out another arrow. He’s running low on them. He should probably make to collect the ones he’s missed, the ones he ran into the ground or the ones that he totally overshot. There’s a good dozen of them that he can reuse. 

He knocks it, pulls it and the string back, feeling the feathers against his cheek. He breathes in the dirt around him, forces his body to relax enough so that everything isn’t awkward. 

So he isn’t build up of sharp angles like he always has been. 

Mother’s the same way. She’s of long limbs, slender fingers, of a thin waist and an air of grace that translates into her movements. She grew up a dancer, grew up doing ballet whereas Damian did art. He’d always wanted to learn how to dance like Mother. Mother tried to teach him in the darkened haze of the night, when Ra’s was away or sleeping. Grandfather hated it, hated Damian dancing and drawing and doing _any_ thing like this, because that was a creative outlet for him to pour every thought that belonged to _himself_. 

Grandfather couldn’t control Damian when he danced. He couldn’t control _Talia_ when she did, because dance was born of free movements, of free thought, of _free_ dom. Grandfather couldn’t control Damian when he drew, (but, but, but. He _could,_ he could fill Damian’s mind with his own thoughts and influence what Damian did, he could whisper his ideals and _manipulate._ And he did. He had.)

(The sad thing was, Damian _listened._ ) 

Perhaps for his birthday, Damian could ask for ballet lessons. Or, perhaps, he could sway Mother to come to him and teach him herself. He _loved_ dancing with mother. He really did. It was the one time when Mother _bled_ her true self to him. It was the one time that she let Damian see and have a part of her that she hardly allowed anyone else to have. Having that part of her all to himself was something he _cherished_. 

Mother didn’t easy let her guard down. She didn’t easily trust. 

Damian was much the same way. It made sense that they only trust each other, didn’t it? 

His eyes grow misty. Grandfather would have an absolute _fit_ had he seen him here, messing up, about to _cry._ That thought is the only thing that drives Damian to allow a tear to run down his cheek. Pure spite is one hell of a motivator. 

He’s done allowing Ra’s to have any say over him, he’s _finished_ with him. Damian is an al Ghul if only for his mother. The only thing he misses about Ra’s is his absence. His absence allowed him and his mother to curl up and watch the sunset, to breathe easy for once in their lives. 

Damian misses those sunsets, those sunrises. He misses his mother’s arms, wrapping around him in a gentle embrace, misses her pulling him close to watch as the world faded to black, or as the sky burst into a flurry of colors that Damian used to long to paint. He can paint them any time he wants, now. His father’s nightly activities keep him awake long past sunset, assure he’ll be just tucking himself in come sunrise. 

He misses Mother’s warmth, though. Father’s home, the manor here, it doesn’t offer _warmth._ The manor is cold, the manor is frigid like Ra’s and the League, like Mother when she has no choice but to stand behind Damian and only place a hand on his shoulder, because to Ra’s, it’s commanding and because Ra’s _loathes_ affection with his whole entire heart, no matter how _much_ he says, _I love you,_ Talia, _I love you,_ Damian, _I love you._

Those words don’t mean much. Not to Damian. Not anymore. 

And yet, when Mother utters them to him during the dead of the night, his insides go to jelly and he feels weak because love isn’t something that Talia al Ghul gives away, it’s not something that his mother allows herself to easily let go of, because both Damian and Talia know that love hurts when you are careless with it. 

(And yet, when Grayson chirps, _I love you, Lil’ D,_ during his sparse visits to the manor since Father came back and he resurfaced, Damian feels something burst in his chest and he thinks, _this is too much, it’s all too much,_ because the only person that has ever said _I love you_ to Damian and _meant it_ has been Mother.) 

The only reason he’s _like this,_ the only reason why he feels weak in the knees around the words _I love you_ , is because of Ra’s and his dirty, dirty _tricks_ and his nasty, nasty _lies._ He hates Grandfather. He _hates_ him, _hates, hates, hates_ with a seething passion. Why, the next time he gets his hands on him, he’ll show him just _why_ he hates him so, as he takes his mother far away from that terrible place and that terrible man- 

(Oh, but these are only thoughts of a boy, a boy who grew up too afraid to hold his mother’s hand because of what the servants might catch, of what his grandfather might here. Oh, but these are only the thoughts of a _child,_ of a little eleven year old who’s been dead for a year, of a young child who was a soldier before a son, because his mother was a pawn before a daughter.) 

He lets the arrow go and the world slows. 

The arrow flies through the air, _free and finding its own destiny because it is in its own hands, even though it has been influenced by Damian’s own hand and power._

(Just like Damian had been, under the rule of Ra’s, as his pencil glided on paper.) 

The arrow’s tip slices straight through the previous, cutting the entire thing in half, _something that only happens in the movies, because there’s no way that this happens in real life._

(Damian imagines a horse beneath him, hooves thudding against the ground, his arrow flying from the tips of his fingers and into his target, a living, breathing man with a daughter at home.) 

Once the whole tip has disappeared behind the canvas, Damian drops to his knees and _cries._

(He cries for the grandson he never was, the son he wanted to be, for the mother he couldn’t save and the father that doesn’t love him, for the brother who acts more like a father than his real one, for the grandfather that only touched him when it was to throw him to the ground. 

He cries for the little boy who didn’t quite get to grow up, because he had blood on his hands since the moment he first breathed.) 

God, he wishes Mother were _here._

**Author's Note:**

> i can be on both sides of talia's parenting, but, can't we just have some good mum talia, please?
> 
> also, i love archery and it's a blast to do, but idk if i have some of the terms right, so i tried to only use like a handful?? so if they aren't right, uh, sue me, idk
> 
> tee hee, come check me out on tumblr: [potato-reblob](https://potato-reblob.tumblr.com/)


End file.
